Film novelizations

[Famous Mortimer]

Very old thread here

I was just reading "Invasion USA", and it was interesting enough to want to chat about. I think a lot of novelizations are based on scripts, not finished movies, so they can be released at the same time. Well, could be, I think it's a dead art. If you're at all familiar with "Invasion USA", you probably don't remember the chirpy kid who's friends with Chuck Norris in the swamp, or a bar mitzvah getting interrupted by a bunch of Nazis (the kid's name is Ben Shapiro, which is probably super-common but just reminds me of one person). Read the book and enjoy these scenes!

There's also a thread running through it of people trying to figure out Chuck's real identity, as his files predating his time in the CIA are marked top secret; and the journalist has a much bigger role. You can almost see the parts that Norris had removed to fit his taciturn style and star power, and it's interesting. Lots of incredibly graphic descriptions of violence too.

Do you have any favourites?

[Mr Vegetables]

The Revenge of the Sith novelisation is well good, unexpectedly. I'd always assumed a tie-in novel of a film could not turn out to be more compelling than the film itself, but this one is. Like it is actually a legitimately enjoyable read, even for me as someone who doesn't have much interest in Star Wars

[bgmnts]

I think the only novelisation of a film script I've read was actually listened to on Audible, and it was alright. I think it is based on a different script than the one used for the film so it doesn't 100% count I suppose  ut close enough.

[13 schoolyards]

I've mentioned it before (and so have others), but there are two seperate novelisations of the first Terminator movie - one a fairly straightforward and bland adaptation for the US market, and one for the UK that really ramps up the sex and violence and was written by Shaun "Slugs" Hudson.

I'm sure there are other examples where different regions had different novelisations, but the way the US got a version for SF nerds and the UK got one for violent degenerates seemed a bit on the nose. Especially as the UK version captures the feel of the film far more effectively.

(and speaking of being based on scripts rather than the finished film, I think both versions feature the deleted ending where it's revealed the final battle took place in the Cyberdyne factory, and that the company stole the remains of the Terminator to build Skynet - which ended up being the basis for the second movie anyway)

[Famous Mortimer]

The one I've always wanted to tracked down was Terry Hayes' novelisation of the first Mad Max film.  It purportedly fleshes out the world a bit more and impressed director George Miller enough for him to hire Hayes to co-script the sequels.   

If you have one of these on the shelf (written under the name "Terry Kaye") then you're looking at the best part of 250 quid, should you choose to sell it; there's one copy on Abebooks and none on Amazon.

[13 schoolyards]

If you have one of these on the shelf (written under the name "Terry Kaye") then you're looking at the best part of 250 quid, should you choose to sell it; there's one copy on Abebooks and none on Amazon.

There was a reprint in 1985 or so that was a fair bit more common (in Australian op shops at least), but the trouble as far as finding it online goes is that for some reason it doesn't have an author listed anywhere on the cover.

Also the title page and chapter headings all say "Mad Max 1", which is just plain wrong

[Fambo Number Mive]

I enjoyed Ed Naha's novelisations of Robocop and Robocop 2. I used to read a lot of film novelisations when I was younger, often not having seen the film. They tended to be an easy read.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Was 2001 one of these? that was ok.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Think the only novelisation I've got is the Zardoz one. Always wanted the Videodrome one but never seen it on sale for a sensible price anywhere

[Phoenix Lazarus]

I had the novel of Star Wars.  If I recall rightly, that mentions the Emperor as being named Palpatine years before the prequel using that name, while the original film excluded that.

[elliszeroed]

The Independence Day novelization had some background into the aliens motives- that they were like locusts that moved from planet to planet, eating everything.

Which made no fucking sense.

Learn to farm, dickwads!

[Terry Torpid]

Was 2001 one of these? that was ok.

2001 is a tricky one to categorise. Is the film an adaptation of the book, or is the book a novelisation of the film, or both? Kubrick and Clarke worked together on the script, while Clarke did the novel at the same time. I think the film came out before the book. I can't think of another book/film project that was made that way. Worked out nicely.

I had the novel of Star Wars.  If I recall rightly, that mentions the Emperor as being named Palpatine years before the prequel using that name, while the original film excluded that.

Yes, but I remember the characterisation being a bit different. Palpatine was painted as something of a useless old duffer who was being puppeteered by his evil advisors, instead of being a master villain in his own right.

[Famous Mortimer]

I remember an introduction to the book of 2010 where Clarke said it was a sequel to the film, not the book (there were a few differences in 1968). Or maybe I'm completely mistaken.

[Terry Torpid]

You're right. In the 2001 book they go to Saturn, but in the film it's Jupiter, just because it was too tricky to do the special effects of Saturn's rings. I haven't read the 2010 book, but I think it continues from Jupiter. Must be confusing for anyone who read the books and never bothered with the film. You'd think old Clarke had lost it and forgotten what planet was meant to be on.

[Jack Shaftoe]

I always thought Alan Dean Fosters' novelisations were pretty great (at least as a pre-teen with no video player but access to the library). His Aliens one in particular was a cracking read, really stripped down and focused and because it was based off the original script, it had the sentry guns (or more about the sentry guns, can't remember how much they were in the finished edit) and what had happened to the original colonists. I was  very confused when I finally saw Aliens on VHS at a friends' house and those bits weren't it it.

Slightly off-topic, but I consumed the Target Doctor Who books before I'd ever seen a single episode of the show, so the various versions of the Doctor were all one character to me. Sometimes he had a long scarf, sometimes he had a cricket jumper, I was only vaguely aware they had different faces and put that down to the writer being bad at details.

[SweetPomPom]

ADF's Aliens book has a really nice final Burke encounter that doesn't appear in any cut of the film, I've always wondered if he introduced it himself to tie up the character's  story line or if it was in the script, possibly even filmed.

[Jack Shaftoe]

According to the Aliens wiki:

Deleted death scene
Originally, Burke's fate in Aliens was less ambiguous — as she searched the Hive for Newt near the end of the film, Ripley found Burke cocooned to the wall, still alive and impregnated with a Chestburster. He tells her he can feel the embryo moving inside him, and begs her to kill him. Ripley does not but leaves him a grenade so that he may end his own suffering. While the meeting between the two was cut, the explosion of the grenade (off-screen) is still in the film — it is the fiery blast that blocks Ripley's path after she frees Newt, forcing them to head deeper into the Hive where they discover the Queen.

The scene was mainly cut because director James Cameron realized that, given the time frame of the film, Burke would still have had a Facehugger attached to him by the time Ripley enters the Hive. Despite this, it still appeared in the novelization of the film and the comic adaptation Aliens: Newt's Tale. The movie footage was released for the first time as a bonus feature on the 2010 Alien Anthology Blu-ray set.

[SweetPomPom]

Case closed, I guess. I should plough through the endless Aliens features to see if I actually have the scene in the house.

Has Foster ever added anything of his own or was it mainly just giving the screenplays proper punctuation?

[Jack Shaftoe]

I remember he added lots of details like how things worked, where the Marines got the stencils done on their armour, that sort of thing, just fleshing out the world without adding huge chunks of backstory or anything. I think that's why I liked his novelisations so much, he clearly respected the source, even thought some writers would like to treat this assignment with utter scorn, so was careful never to try and take over the story.

Adam Christopher (who I follow on twitter) is quite interesting when he talks about this. He's done a lot of spin-off books for Star Wars and video games like Dishonoured (those are really well-written), although I don't know if he's done any straight novelisations.

I like that there's less stigma attached to them these days, I guess people have grown up with them now, so there's a lot of affection. Although that said, I was in a university film archive a few years back and there were novelisations of black and white films like Dracula (don't know which version), so they've been around for a much longer time that most people realise.

[atavist]

Alan Dean Foster was (is?) the King of film novelisations.

Although admittedly I haven't read one since I was about 12.

[Alberon]

I remember an introduction to the book of 2010 where Clarke said it was a sequel to the film, not the book (there were a few differences in 1968). Or maybe I'm completely mistaken.

You're right. In the 2001 book they go to Saturn, but in the film it's Jupiter, just because it was too tricky to do the special effects of Saturn's rings. I haven't read the 2010 book, but I think it continues from Jupiter. Must be confusing for anyone who read the books and never bothered with the film. You'd think old Clarke had lost it and forgotten what planet was meant to be on.

It gets more complicated than that. Clarke wrote four Odyssey books in the end. The first was based on story written by both Clarke and Kubrick (as was the film). The others all have small differences from the books that went before, the Saturn/Jupiter thing being the most obvious.

Clarke himself said the books were all set in different parallel universes, which might just be a cop-out.

[another Mr. Lizard]

I was in a university film archive a few years back and there were novelisations of black and white films like Dracula (don't know which version), so they've been around for a much longer time that most people realise.

The oldest I have are 1946 editions of A Matter of Life and Death and A Night in Casablanca.

There were a number published in the 70s under the pen name Carl Dreadstone (Ramsey Campbell was one of the authors) based on old classic 1930s Universal horror movies, and other retro titles have appeared since. That idea even seems to be a thing in the world of fan fiction - amateur writers picking a vintage favourite and adapting it to prose form (an acquaintance of mine did their own 'Dracula A.D. 1972' a while ago)

[Bad Ambassador]

I had the Ladybird edition of Ghostbusters II, which probably said the Scoleri brothers happened to die sitting down.

[Yussef Dent]

The Independence Day novelization had some background into the aliens motives- that they were like locusts that moved from planet to planet, eating everything.

Which made no fucking sense.

Learn to farm, dickwads!

Didn't they have to leave their home planet as it was dying or something? Years ago since I read it, there may have been more than one book as well? I vaguely remember how the biomechanical suits some of the aliens wore were from another species which they specifically bred to eventually remove their hardened exoskeletons and graft onto themselves as protection.

[Jack Shaftoe]

I remember the Gremlins novelisation had a whole thing about the Mogwai being bred as universal diplomats, as every species across the galaxy found them adorable, only for them to cause chaos when the obvious happened. Always wondered if this was from an early draft of the script or if the writer just thought 'hey, this is a cool idea!' Which it sort of is, but also sets up wayyyy more questions than it answers.

I think most of my reading between the ages of 9-14 was film novelisations.

[elliszeroed]

I remember the Gremlins novelisation had a whole thing about the Mogwai being bred as universal diplomats, as every species across the galaxy found them adorable, only for them to cause chaos when the obvious happened. Always wondered if this was from an early draft of the script or if the writer just thought 'hey, this is a cool idea!' Which it sort of is, but also sets up wayyyy more questions than it answers.

I think most of my reading between the ages of 9-14 was film novelisations.

I remember the Gremlins novelisation having more backstory for the Mogwai/ Mowgli. It was a childrens novelisation... but the movie wasn't for children was it?

[Jack Shaftoe]

Looks like it was aimed at kids (at least younger kids could go and see it), then complaints about upsetting scenes in this and Temple of Doom led to the PG 13 rating becoming a thing in the US.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I remember the 1995 Judge Dredd film had two novelisations, one for teenagers and one for adults. The former had a section of colour photos and the latter's chapters were in a weird order.

The adult novelisation, despite its chapters being in the wrong order, was much better than the actual film.

[willbo]

The 90s Batman ones were really good, both for having deleted scenes/earlier plots, being more comic book true, and (in the case of Forever and Robin) being more serious as the film's "tone" hadn't been set by then.

One thing has ALWAYS bugged me about the Forever novel though. When Dick Grayson steals the Batmobile, he takes the cape, but can't find the suit or mask, so he tries to face the gang with his cape held up over his face, "like Bela Lugosi". I think you'll all know in a second what's wrong with that line.

Spoiler alert

it's a reference to the notorious scenes in "plan 9 from outer space" where Ed Wood's Bela stand in hid his face with his cape - but that was the FAKE Bela! Obviously the real Bela never his his face in that or any other film!

[close]

The Indy ones were some of the first books I ever read too. I remember in Last Crusade the part in the library where he breaks the floor in time to the librarian's stamp is totally missed out - he just finds that part is loose.

[willbo]

The Revenge of the Sith novelisation is well good, unexpectedly. I'd always assumed a tie-in novel of a film could not turn out to be more compelling than the film itself, but this one is. Like it is actually a legitimately enjoyable read, even for me as someone who doesn't have much interest in Star Wars

George Lucas went to huge effort to hire good fantasy authors for the prequel books and give them all the deleted sub plots and back story he had. Terry Brooks, who wrote the Ep 1 one, was bought to stay in Skywalker Ranch for a few days and says Lucas sat up at night with him for hours giving him piles of notes and telling him what he wanted.